Marketing Advice

The Three Stages of Manufacturing and Industrial Website Design

We talk to people a lot about what they want their websites to do and what results they want from their site. Then we look at their current industrial website, and I see why they don’t get the results that they want.

Most people in industrial, material handling, manufacturing and construction don’t know that there are a few different stages in website development.

I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the three separate stages of website design and what makes each one unique. The goal, of course, is to be in the third stage.

Simple Industrial Website:

Your industrial company has its first website. Nice work, while this is only this first step, it is a very meaningful one. Your website functions as the hub of almost all of your marketing activity.

Content: Your site is relatively simple, not too complicated. You have the standard pages, About Us, Services Page, etc. You talk about your services, but maybe you are talking about your services a bit too much

It is probably very focused on words and less focused on images. You have little to no video on your site.

Conversion: Your contact page is probably the only place that you have for conversion.

SEO: Your SEO is based primarily on on-page SEO if at all. You might be using some outdated techniques. Your limited amount of pages and lack of social outreach hurt your SEO.

Content Marketing Stage:

Your website is now more modern, it has more images, and you have more pages than your original site. It has a nice clean, welcoming look.

Content: You are beginning to focus more on your customers in your copy. You know that writing from their perspective is much more efficient.

Maybe you have some video, but they are hosted on YouTube instead of self-hosted, which can bring in more visitors and links.

Conversion: Maybe you have a few downloads that act as honey for your websites. Perhaps you have a way for people to sign up for a newsletter.

SEO: You have begun blogging for your website. You understand the concept of social media as a signal, and you have a few inbound links.

Inbound Marketing Stage:

You have fully embraced inbound marketing. Your website is the hub of your marketing both online and offline. You have marketing automation that makes your job easier and makes you more productive.

Content: Your content is entirely geared towards your customers and prospects. Your video is self-hosted (or is for the purpose of the search engines). You have a variety of pages that talk to different segments of your audience depending on who they are, their needs and their personas.

Conversion: You have a library of content for various stages of your prospects needs. You have nurturing campaigns that send conversion to other content they might be interested in so you can fully nurture your prospects and send better leads to sales.

You regularly update your blog (once a week or more), and you have great Call to Actions. You have a variety of conversion pages and a growing email newsletter list.